At what level do you think the fighter and wizard are equal?
Answer: Equal in what way? Because if it is a battle I would honestly argue at no level does the fighter defeat the wizard but and anything level five and above the battle is in the wizard’s favour too such a degree it isn’t even fair. At level one if the wizard gets a turn the wizard can straight up one shot the fighter with no save or attack roll with either the Sleep or Magic Missile and since the wizard has Shield or Mage Armor and probably an Owl familiar made from the Find Familiar spell the wizard is stacked it would be very hard for the fighter to hurt or sneak attack the wizard at all even if the fighter tried to run away and attack when the wizard slept.
So yeah at no level do I think the fighter could win and the only time he has a chance is at 1st-4th level and even then the wizard at second level is either a Chronurgist or Divination or even an Abjuration wizard so the wizard still can win quite easily.
At what level do you think the fighter and wizard are equal?
Answer: Equal in what way? Because if it is a battle I would honestly argue at no level does the fighter defeat the wizard but and anything level five and above the battle is in the wizard’s favour too such a degree it isn’t even fair. At level one if the wizard gets a turn the wizard can straight up one shot the fighter with no save or attack roll with either the Sleep or Magic Missile and since the wizard has Shield or Mage Armor and probably an Owl familiar made from the Find Familiar spell the wizard is stacked it would be very hard for the fighter to hurt or sneak attack the wizard at all even if the fighter tried to run away and attack when the wizard slept.
So yeah at no level do I think the fighter could win and the only time he has a chance is at 1st-4th level and even then the wizard at second level is either a Chronurgist or Divination or even an Abjuration wizard so the wizard still can win quite easily.
Yeah, the main balancing factor is that at low levels the wizard can blow up like 3 encounters in 1 action each then is just another weak ranged attacker until they take another long rest, in a game balanced with 6 encounters per long rest in mind. At 1 encounter per long rest they become hilariously overpowered.
One problem though, magic missile does average 10.5 damage, maximum 15. A fighter with 14 con (the minimum for standard array unless strange things are going on with the build) has 12 health. Is the wizard likely to win? Yes. Are they likely to win in one round? There’s a decent chance, but not really with magic missile. Sleep is still near-certain to put the fighter to sleep, so the wizard can easily incapacitate then leave or attack from 5 feet with autocrit using chromatic orb or something for 6d8, which is a one hit KO.
At 5th level everyone gets a massive power spike. Martian’s get twice as many attacks, casters get 3rd-level spells, possibly the biggest increase in spell power until ninth level, and rogues get uncanny dodge to halve 1 attack per reaction.
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Perhaps an interesting question is how well you can build a fighter to extend it's lifetime before the inevitable happens.
Answer: No matter what the wizard without prep is never going to burst down the fighter in a round but the wizard doesn’t need to. All a wizard needs to do is trap/remove/cut off the fighter then hit the fighter with a AOE damage spell while they are trapped.
The most infamous death trap by the wizard is the Forcecage and Sickening Radiance spell combo. Another combo is Wall of Force, Faithful Hound, additionally Prismatic Wall exists and can immediately shut down any fighter even the Eldritch Knight Fighter as to get through all of the Rainbow Walls you need to know their weaknesses and even if the fighter knew how to get out it wouldn’t matter since the wizard isn’t affected by the wall at all and could if he wanted to in addition to the rainbow sphere cast any Aoe spell and just kill the fighter after a few minutes or so.
Not to mention the countless other strategies out there that exist that can just completely shut down the fighter and make them helpless.
Equip Shortsword to throat sheathe. Start out wielding Arcane Focus and Open hand for Somatic Components. Win Initiative with +10. Bonus Action: cast Hex targeting Dexterity Ability Checks for disadvantage. No Action: drop the Arcane Focus. Free Action draw Musket. Movement: Spend Half Movement to Mount Draft Horse. Draft Horse Movement: Move within range of the Wizard. Action: Attack (4x) + 1 Rapid Strike (On First Attack), Use the First Attack (The non Rapid Strike) to do the Disarm option as described in the DMG (pg 271). Action Surge Action: Attack (4x). No Action/Movement bend over letting the throat sheathed Shortsword cut open the Fighter’s guts dropping the Fighter’s HP to zero. Reaction: Strength beyond Death, for an Extra Turn.
Strength beyond Death, Extra Turn. Action: Attack (4x) + 1 Rapid Strike, Action Surge Action: Attack (4x). Free Action: Remove Sheathed Shortsword. Bonus Action: Second Wind to stay alive. Reaction: Sadly Nothing to use the Reaction on.
Summary:
Total Attacks: 1 Disarm Strike (Rapid Strike), 1 Rapid Strikes (Normal), 15 Average Attacks. Total To Hit Dice Rolled: 47, with 47 dice rolled we can assume 2 Crits are made at least. For 2 Crits along with Piercer that adds up to 4d12 (6.5) + 2d6 (3.5) = 29.5 extra damage.
Average Max Damage: 17 (# of Attacks) x 23.25 (Average Weapon Damage) = 395.25 + 29.5 (Crit Damage).
Total Damage: 427.25
Against AC 23 (No Shield held): 0.657 x 427.25 = 279.0
Wizard HP: 265 - 279 = -14 Hp
Verdict: Taking almost everything into consideration on average the SSS can Nova down the Abjuration Tank Wizard (No Piercer Reroll, etc).
Anyways do tell how you feel about the newest build of my SSS build as now it doesn't rely on prone for advantage and it via the Disarm can lower the wizards AC. Though even still the Fighter doesn't have a over 50% win rate because the Abjuration Tank Wizard also has a +10 initiative bonus in addition to lucky so the wizard still does better than the Fighter a majority of the time. Lest not forgot to mention the full initiative wizard (War Magic/Chronurgist/Divination) who can just go first before the Fighter. Additionally I still think that a Chronurgist could use Convergent Future to force himself to quite literally one-up the fighter in the initiative order.
I am not sure that initiative rolls can be “failed,” but that still allows the chronurgist to win most of the time. Also, the sniper has the same +10 to initiative. Unless sharpshooter still falls apart though I can’t think of any other expendable feats, so the tank does still win the initiative most of the time. Also, I don’t think disarming removes shields.
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I am not sure that initiative rolls can be “failed,” but that still allows the chronurgist to win most of the time. Also, the sniper has the same +10 to initiative. Unless sharpshooter still falls apart though I can’t think of any other expendable feats, so the tank does still win the initiative most of the time. Also, I don’t think disarming removes shields.
Chronal Shift would allow the Chronugist to force an enemy or allow them to roll their initiative again, if they didn't like the first roll. It's another chance for the Chronurgist to win initiative, but certainly not guaranteed. I don't know of a similar fighter subclass ability to force the re-roll, also. So that's a point in the wizard's favor increasing the chance of going first.
What is the "sniper" that has +10 to initiative? The problem with feats that add to initiative like Alert, is that if one level 20 can take it, so can the other. So no net effect on initiative. I just assume both would have taken Alert, since winning initiative is so important to this fight.
edit: ignore this post I calculated a ton of math and then now I need to recalculate it because I made a whole post asking why De4thknight's to hit chance was so high but then I realized that it's just because they forgot to mention that their fighter took elven accuracy
that took way longer to realize than I'd like to admit
Deathknight said the wizard had +10 initiative. I am saying the fighter has the same modifier (+5 dex and alert, which the wizard probably has). Same mod, but only the wizard is lucky. That means the wizard is still more likely to go first. This is all for the tank build, not the guy with like +20 and advantage on initiative or whatever nonsense is going on with that build.
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the wizard begins carrying two shields with him and then uses wish to cast forcecage without using a somatic or material component
That was mostly a joke I don't actually think a wizard would do that.
Going to redo those damage calculations, mostly because I did all this math for the last post that I ended up editing out and don't want it to go to waste.
(This time I accounted for elven accuracy, even though it's not listed in the post, because the Samurai has an above average hit chance & is missing a +1 DEX half-feat and thus, I conclude that it was probably elven accuracy)
The only real errors are that you made two rapid strike attacks yet forgot to actually forgo the advantage (so 16 with advantage, and 1 without advantage), which is made up for the fact that you included crit damage as being able to miss which turns out actually adds a lot of damage apparently, who knew.
Quickly putting together an anydice function puts it at 65.7% to hit and 14.26% to crit. (with a +8 you need a 15 or higher to hit AC 23, since 8 + 15 = 23).
function: does A:n hit B:n { if A >= B { result: 1 } result: 0 }
output [does [highest of [highest of 1d20 and 1d20] and 1d20] hit 15]
So, here's my calculations (tell me if I make any mistakes)
16 adv attacks against AC 23 with +8 (65.7% * 23.25) + (14.26% * 14.75) = 17.3786 * 16 attacks = 278.0576
1 normal attack against AC 23 with +13 (no SS is better without adv) (55% * 23.25) + (5% * 14.75) = 13.525
Piercer rerolls two attacks, changing two d12 (6.5) to a d12 (8) which is a nice extra +3 damage. While yes there is that chance you can't piercer because you missed every single attack, or never rolled a d12 below a 7, that chance I assume is so small it's not worth calculating.
278.0576 + 13.525 + 3 = 294.5826
If you google LudicSavant and AureusFulgen's DPR Calculator it also outputs similar results, 292.2 avg damage though but that's excluding Piercer reroll because that calculator doesn't handle piercer well. If you add the +3 from rerolls it's slightly higher because it crit chance is 0.142625 instead of 0.1426.
tdlr;
294.5826 damage not 279
I agree initiative wizard still beats out the samurai though, and I still think eating a sword to activate Strength Before Death is cheese, but even if you spent an attack on yourself it'd still work out on average.
edit: ignore this post I calculated a ton of math and then now I need to recalculate it because I made a whole post asking why De4thknight's to hit chance was so high but then I realized that it's just because they forgot to mention that their fighter took elven accuracy
that took way longer to realize than I'd like to admit
Answer: Haha what the how did I forget like the most important feat to mention in the build. It’s fixed now.
EDIT: Kinda feel bad for not mentioning Elven Accuracy so you had to redo your math but what is done is done.
Ability Score Increases/Feats: ASI +2 to Int, ASI +2 to Int, Alert (+5 to initiative), Lucky (3 rerolls), Martial Adept (Ambush: 1d6 to Initiative).
Final Ability Scores: 8, 16, 16, 20, 8, 8
Side Note: If you want you could switch the Int and Dex so it becomes 20 Dex, and 16 Int as the wizard probably values a higher AC more the spell DC since you have things like force cage and maze which don’t require a high DC along with Polymorphs and such.
Total Bonus: +19 + 1d6 (With Advantage and Lucky for up to 3 rolls to choose from). An average 1d6 roll is 3.5 so we can assume the final average base score is +22.5 to Initiative. But we still forget the average dice roll the average dice roll for 1d20 is 10.5, for 2d20 it is 13.82 and since we have Chronal Shift and Lucky we actually can roll up to 3d20 for an average roll of 15.49 rounded let’s say 15.5. So now we have an average and the min and max are easy.
Minimum Initiative Roll: 21
Average Initiative Roll: 38
Maximum Initiative Roll: 45
PS: Remember that Initiative is an ability check as such Convergent Future would be able to affect it and alter it to “succeed” (get the highest roll above others) and since initiative is very much akin to say contested ability checks but instead with more rolls (most of the time) it is primed to work. Although since we already had the ‘does convergent future work on initiative’ discussion and even so I still stand by that it would work I won’t go further into that argument for this post.
Answer: Just Quoting a bit from my Initiative Wizard Build from post #702 so it is easier to reference the build.
the wizard begins carrying two shields with him and then uses wish to cast forcecage without using a somatic or material component
That was mostly a joke I don't actually think a wizard would do that.
Answer: There has been crazier builds out there but even lets say the Wizard had 2 Shields. Taking into account the newly calculated damage output of 294.5826 and that you would be loosing essentially one attack worth in damage (23.25 x 0.657 = 15.27525) that would still leave you with 14ish more damage than needed over the 265Hp wizard so the fighter although his win rate would be diminished by a bit the fighter would still be able to win with the damage left.
Going to redo those damage calculations, mostly because I did all this math for the last post that I ended up editing out and don't want it to go to waste.
(This time I accounted for elven accuracy, even though it's not listed in the post, because the Samurai has an above average hit chance & is missing a +1 DEX half-feat and thus, I conclude that it was probably elven accuracy)
Answer: Feels bad man, though good job with the calculations as at first glance it seems correct and nothing looks out of place.
The only real errors are that you made two rapid strike attacks yet forgot to actually forgo the advantage (so 16 with advantage, and 1 without advantage), which is made up for the fact that you included crit damage as being able to miss which turns out actually adds a lot of damage apparently, who knew.
Answer: Less forgot about to do and more I don't want to make my life harder and I knew that even if I did calculate it, it would've been big enough to lower the damage required to knock out the Wizard. As for the crit damage yeah I just added up all the damage instead then put it up against the AC and who would guessed as you say it increased the damage by a substantial amount!
Quickly putting together an anydice function puts it at 65.7% to hit and 14.26% to crit. (with a +8 you need a 15 or higher to hit AC 23, since 8 + 15 = 23).
function: does A:n hit B:n { if A >= B { result: 1 } result: 0 }
output [does [highest of [highest of 1d20 and 1d20] and 1d20] hit 15]
So, here's my calculations (tell me if I make any mistakes)
16 adv attacks against AC 23 with +8 (65.7% * 23.25) + (14.26% * 14.75) = 17.3786 * 16 attacks = 278.0576
1 normal attack against AC 23 with +13 (no SS is better without adv) (55% * 23.25) + (5% * 14.75) = 13.525
Piercer rerolls two attacks, changing two d12 (6.5) to a d12 (8) which is a nice extra +3 damage. While yes there is that chance you can't piercer because you missed every single attack, or never rolled a d12 below a 7, that chance I assume is so small it's not worth calculating.
278.0576 + 13.525 + 3 = 294.5826
If you google LudicSavant and AureusFulgen's DPR Calculator it also outputs similar results, 292.2 avg damage though but that's excluding Piercer reroll because that calculator doesn't handle piercer well. If you add the +3 from rerolls it's slightly higher because it crit chance is 0.142625 instead of 0.1426.
tdlr;
294.5826 damage not 279
Answer: Looks good by my estimates as the numbers don't seem out of place. Good job everything looks great!
I agree initiative wizard still beats out the samurai though, and I still think eating a sword to activate Strength Before Death is cheese, but even if you spent an attack on yourself it'd still work out on average.
Answer: Haha yes its a bit weird essentially doing sword swallowing act but... with a real sword... used to rip open your guts... ok yeah it's a little out there to say the least but I wouldn't see anyway a DM could say no except to exclusively just ban the act of doing it even if it is "cheese." As for the initiative wizard as I have shown again (see either post #702 or post #1059) the wizard can get a crazy large Initiative bonus.
I did experiment with the idea of the wizard build replacing Resilient CON for +1 DEX +1 CON (moving around point buy) then replacing Fighting Style Defense with Skill Expert (Acrobatics) for 16 DEX & expertise, but I reached the conclusion that AC 24 (from not being disarmed - 1 because no Defense Fighting Style) would still result in the wizard dying.
But yeah I guess it is just initiative wizard now. At least against Samurai anyways.
I did experiment with the idea of the wizard build replacing Resilient CON for +1 DEX +1 CON then grabbing Skill Expert (Acrobatics) but I reached the conclusion that AC 24 (from not being disarmed - 1 because no Defense Fighting Style) would still result in the wizard dying.
Answer: Don't forget Hex gives "disadvantage on ability checks made with the chosen ability" (Dexterity). So if you didn't take that into account it makes the wizard's chances even worse in this particular scenario.
I did experiment with the idea of the wizard build replacing Resilient CON for +1 DEX +1 CON (moving around point buy) then replacing Fighting Style Defense with Skill Expert (Acrobatics) for 16 DEX & expertise, but I reached the conclusion that AC 24 (from not being disarmed - 1 because no Defense Fighting Style) would still result in the wizard dying.
But yeah I guess it is just initiative wizard now. At least against Samurai anyways.
The initiative chronurgist is also better against eldritch knights and arcane archers, the only other fighters anyone really tried as far as I know. Autofail the fighter’s saves vs insert incapacitate effect here and force-fail the arcane archer’s banishing arrow.
The whole thing was just about getting a turn to shapechange or something anyway so why go through the trouble of surviving 15 shots before acting when you could just go first? Nobody has thought of a fighter that can reliably beat true polymorph anyway. Eldritch knight can attempt dispel magic but with a low chance of success. Arcane archer’s banishing arrow allows saves, and dragons have high charisma saves while the arcane archer needs to sacrifice a lot to have a high DC to match. Sniper samurai can’t nova down any form worth using and has to give up everything for one nova. Once someone finds a fighter with odds above 50% of beating a shapechanged chronurgist regardless of its form, then the debate can continue.
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Hmm well it is a whiteroom so no need to adhere to common conventions… if we need more damage and we can’t use magic items but we can use common/basic gear, items, and such. Why not use the antimatter rifle or the laser guns those work. Additionally even though I don’t like it the fighter could technically have their weapons/ammunition be poisoned based as each is coated in poison like Purple Worm Poison.
Nobody has thought of a fighter that can reliably beat true polymorph anyway. Eldritch knight can attempt dispel magic but with a low chance of success. Arcane archer’s banishing arrow allows saves, and dragons have high charisma saves while the arcane archer needs to sacrifice a lot to have a high DC to match.
Answer: Generally agree but disagree with the unintended slander that the Eldritch Knight is on the same level as the Arcane Archer as the EK is technically (last I checked) second place in viability with the SSS being first.
Sniper samurai can’t nova down any form worth using and has to give up everything for one nova.
Answer: Entirely relies on which form is chosen by wizard since if it is adult gold/red dragon the SSS can effectively one shot the forms hp via Nova or defeat the form in a couple of turns and against stronger forms like a ancient white it only takes a few turns for the SSS to smash through the wizatds hp but then again after the form is defeated the fighter still has to kill the wizard.
Once someone finds a fighter with odds above 50% of beating a shapechanged chronurgist regardless of its form, then the debate can continue.
Answer: I say it is already possible but it depends on if you think it is “fair” and while it technically is (Antimatter Rifle/Purple Worm Poison) as it is a whiteroom and as long as it’s in the books it allowed no matter the time/setting especially with the Antimatter Rifle one as it is technically a martial ranged weapon (firearm) and doesn’t rely on the “any but magic items rule” everyone seems to agree on.
Amyways do tell if what I’m saying makes sense (I’m tired) or if I missed something.
Deathknight said the wizard had +10 initiative. I am saying the fighter has the same modifier (+5 dex and alert, which the wizard probably has). Same mod, but only the wizard is lucky. That means the wizard is still more likely to go first. This is all for the tank build, not the guy with like +20 and advantage on initiative or whatever nonsense is going on with that build.
Several wizard subclasses would have a +15 to initiative or close to it, in that scenario (int, dex and alert). You probably know this already, but just want to be sure. :)
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At what level do you think the fighter and wizard are equal?
Answer: Equal in what way? Because if it is a battle I would honestly argue at no level does the fighter defeat the wizard but and anything level five and above the battle is in the wizard’s favour too such a degree it isn’t even fair.
At level one if the wizard gets a turn the wizard can straight up one shot the fighter with no save or attack roll with either the Sleep or Magic Missile and since the wizard has Shield or Mage Armor and probably an Owl familiar made from the Find Familiar spell the wizard is stacked it would be very hard for the fighter to hurt or sneak attack the wizard at all even if the fighter tried to run away and attack when the wizard slept.
So yeah at no level do I think the fighter could win and the only time he has a chance is at 1st-4th level and even then the wizard at second level is either a Chronurgist or Divination or even an Abjuration wizard so the wizard still can win quite easily.
Yeah, the main balancing factor is that at low levels the wizard can blow up like 3 encounters in 1 action each then is just another weak ranged attacker until they take another long rest, in a game balanced with 6 encounters per long rest in mind. At 1 encounter per long rest they become hilariously overpowered.
One problem though, magic missile does average 10.5 damage, maximum 15. A fighter with 14 con (the minimum for standard array unless strange things are going on with the build) has 12 health. Is the wizard likely to win? Yes. Are they likely to win in one round? There’s a decent chance, but not really with magic missile. Sleep is still near-certain to put the fighter to sleep, so the wizard can easily incapacitate then leave or attack from 5 feet with autocrit using chromatic orb or something for 6d8, which is a one hit KO.
At 5th level everyone gets a massive power spike. Martian’s get twice as many attacks, casters get 3rd-level spells, possibly the biggest increase in spell power until ninth level, and rogues get uncanny dodge to halve 1 attack per reaction.
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Perhaps an interesting question is how well you can build a fighter to extend it's lifetime before the inevitable happens.
Answer: No matter what the wizard without prep is never going to burst down the fighter in a round but the wizard doesn’t need to. All a wizard needs to do is trap/remove/cut off the fighter then hit the fighter with a AOE damage spell while they are trapped.
The most infamous death trap by the wizard is the Forcecage and Sickening Radiance spell combo. Another combo is Wall of Force, Faithful Hound, additionally Prismatic Wall exists and can immediately shut down any fighter even the Eldritch Knight Fighter as to get through all of the Rainbow Walls you need to know their weaknesses and even if the fighter knew how to get out it wouldn’t matter since the wizard isn’t affected by the wall at all and could if he wanted to in addition to the rainbow sphere cast any Aoe spell and just kill the fighter after a few minutes or so.
Not to mention the countless other strategies out there that exist that can just completely shut down the fighter and make them helpless.
Revised Revision of the Seppuku Sniper Samurai:
Class: Fighter, Level 20, Subclass: Samurai
Fighting Style: Archery (+2 to Hit for ranged weapons)
Background: essentially Irrelevant Except for Knight since RETAINERS can potentially help
Proficiencies: Athletics, Arcana, Insight, Perception, and Investigation because why not?
Race: Half-Elf (Tasha’s change +2 Cha to +2 Dex instead)
Feats: Alert (+5 Initiative), Elven Accuracy (+1 to Dex, and “Triple Advantage”), Piercer (+1 Dex, More Damage on Crit), Gunner (+1 Dex, Firearm Prof.), Fey Touched (+1 Cha, Hex, Misty Step), Sharpshooter (-5 to Hit, +10 to damage), and Mounted Combatant (Advantage against non mounted creatures).
Base Ability Scores: 14, 15, 8, 10, 10, 14
Ability Scores with Racial Bonuses: 15, 17, 8, 10, 10, 15
Total Ability Score: 16, 20, 8, 10, 10, 16
Equipment: Musket, Shortsword, Arcane Focus, Draft Horse (Large), Saddle, Bit and Bridle
Weapon: +8 to hit, 1d12 (6.5), + 1d6 (3.5/2 = 1.75) + 5 (20 Dex) + 10 (Sharpshooter)
The Plan:
Equip Shortsword to throat sheathe. Start out wielding Arcane Focus and Open hand for Somatic Components. Win Initiative with +10. Bonus Action: cast Hex targeting Dexterity Ability Checks for disadvantage. No Action: drop the Arcane Focus. Free Action draw Musket. Movement: Spend Half Movement to Mount Draft Horse. Draft Horse Movement: Move within range of the Wizard. Action: Attack (4x) + 1 Rapid Strike (On First Attack), Use the First Attack (The non Rapid Strike) to do the Disarm option as described in the DMG (pg 271). Action Surge Action: Attack (4x). No Action/Movement bend over letting the throat sheathed Shortsword cut open the Fighter’s guts dropping the Fighter’s HP to zero. Reaction: Strength beyond Death, for an Extra Turn.
Strength beyond Death, Extra Turn. Action: Attack (4x) + 1 Rapid Strike, Action Surge Action: Attack (4x). Free Action: Remove Sheathed Shortsword. Bonus Action: Second Wind to stay alive. Reaction: Sadly Nothing to use the Reaction on.
Summary:
Total Attacks: 1 Disarm Strike (Rapid Strike), 1 Rapid Strikes (Normal), 15 Average Attacks. Total To Hit Dice Rolled: 47, with 47 dice rolled we can assume 2 Crits are made at least. For 2 Crits along with Piercer that adds up to 4d12 (6.5) + 2d6 (3.5) = 29.5 extra damage.
Average Max Damage: 17 (# of Attacks) x 23.25 (Average Weapon Damage) = 395.25 + 29.5 (Crit Damage).
Total Damage: 427.25
Against AC 23 (No Shield held): 0.657 x 427.25 = 279.0
Wizard HP: 265 - 279 = -14 Hp
Verdict: Taking almost everything into consideration on average the SSS can Nova down the Abjuration Tank Wizard (No Piercer Reroll, etc).
Anyways do tell how you feel about the newest build of my SSS build as now it doesn't rely on prone for advantage and it via the Disarm can lower the wizards AC. Though even still the Fighter doesn't have a over 50% win rate because the Abjuration Tank Wizard also has a +10 initiative bonus in addition to lucky so the wizard still does better than the Fighter a majority of the time. Lest not forgot to mention the full initiative wizard (War Magic/Chronurgist/Divination) who can just go first before the Fighter. Additionally I still think that a Chronurgist could use Convergent Future to force himself to quite literally one-up the fighter in the initiative order.
I am not sure that initiative rolls can be “failed,” but that still allows the chronurgist to win most of the time. Also, the sniper has the same +10 to initiative. Unless sharpshooter still falls apart though I can’t think of any other expendable feats, so the tank does still win the initiative most of the time. Also, I don’t think disarming removes shields.
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Chronal Shift would allow the Chronugist to force an enemy or allow them to roll their initiative again, if they didn't like the first roll. It's another chance for the Chronurgist to win initiative, but certainly not guaranteed. I don't know of a similar fighter subclass ability to force the re-roll, also. So that's a point in the wizard's favor increasing the chance of going first.
What is the "sniper" that has +10 to initiative? The problem with feats that add to initiative like Alert, is that if one level 20 can take it, so can the other. So no net effect on initiative. I just assume both would have taken Alert, since winning initiative is so important to this fight.
edit: ignore this post I calculated a ton of math and then now I need to recalculate it because I made a whole post asking why De4thknight's to hit chance was so high but then I realized that it's just because they forgot to mention that their fighter took elven accuracy
that took way longer to realize than I'd like to admit
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
Deathknight said the wizard had +10 initiative. I am saying the fighter has the same modifier (+5 dex and alert, which the wizard probably has). Same mod, but only the wizard is lucky. That means the wizard is still more likely to go first. This is all for the tank build, not the guy with like +20 and advantage on initiative or whatever nonsense is going on with that build.
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
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the wizard begins carrying two shields with him and then uses wish to cast forcecage without using a somatic or material component
That was mostly a joke I don't actually think a wizard would do that.
Going to redo those damage calculations, mostly because
I did all this math for the last post that I ended up editing out and don't want it to go to waste.(This time I accounted for elven accuracy, even though it's not listed in the post, because the Samurai has an above average hit chance & is missing a +1 DEX half-feat and thus, I conclude that it was probably elven accuracy)
The only real errors are that you made two rapid strike attacks yet forgot to actually forgo the advantage (so 16 with advantage, and 1 without advantage), which is made up for the fact that you included crit damage as being able to miss which turns out actually adds a lot of damage apparently, who knew.
Quickly putting together an anydice function puts it at 65.7% to hit and 14.26% to crit. (with a +8 you need a 15 or higher to hit AC 23, since 8 + 15 = 23).
function: does A:n hit B:n {
if A >= B { result: 1 }
result: 0
}
output [does [highest of [highest of 1d20 and 1d20] and 1d20] hit 15]
So, here's my calculations (tell me if I make any mistakes)
Damage on hit: 1d12 (6.5), + 1d6 (Hex halved to magic resistance, 3.5/2 = 1.75) + 5 (Dex) + 10 (SS) = 23.25
Crit damage: 1d12 (6.5) + 1d12 (6.5, piercer) + 1d6 (Hex, 3.5/2 = 1.75) = 14.75
16 adv attacks against AC 23 with +8 (65.7% * 23.25) + (14.26% * 14.75) = 17.3786 * 16 attacks = 278.0576
1 normal attack against AC 23 with +13 (no SS is better without adv) (55% * 23.25) + (5% * 14.75) = 13.525
Piercer rerolls two attacks, changing two d12 (6.5) to a d12 (8) which is a nice extra +3 damage. While yes there is that chance you can't piercer because you missed every single attack, or never rolled a d12 below a 7, that chance I assume is so small it's not worth calculating.
278.0576 + 13.525 + 3 = 294.5826
If you google LudicSavant and AureusFulgen's DPR Calculator it also outputs similar results, 292.2 avg damage though but that's excluding Piercer reroll because that calculator doesn't handle piercer well. If you add the +3 from rerolls it's slightly higher because it crit chance is 0.142625 instead of 0.1426.
tdlr;
294.5826 damage not 279
I agree initiative wizard still beats out the samurai though, and I still think eating a sword to activate Strength Before Death is cheese, but even if you spent an attack on yourself it'd still work out on average.
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
Answer: Haha what the how did I forget like the most important feat to mention in the build. It’s fixed now.
EDIT: Kinda feel bad for not mentioning Elven Accuracy so you had to redo your math but what is done is done.
Answer: Just Quoting a bit from my Initiative Wizard Build from post #702 so it is easier to reference the build.
Answer: There has been crazier builds out there but even lets say the Wizard had 2 Shields. Taking into account the newly calculated damage output of 294.5826 and that you would be loosing essentially one attack worth in damage (23.25 x 0.657 = 15.27525) that would still leave you with 14ish more damage than needed over the 265Hp wizard so the fighter although his win rate would be diminished by a bit the fighter would still be able to win with the damage left.
Answer: Feels bad man, though good job with the calculations as at first glance it seems correct and nothing looks out of place.
Answer: Less forgot about to do and more I don't want to make my life harder and I knew that even if I did calculate it, it would've been big enough to lower the damage required to knock out the Wizard. As for the crit damage yeah I just added up all the damage instead then put it up against the AC and who would guessed as you say it increased the damage by a substantial amount!
Answer: Looks good by my estimates as the numbers don't seem out of place. Good job everything looks great!
Answer: Haha yes its a bit weird essentially doing sword swallowing act but... with a real sword... used to rip open your guts... ok yeah it's a little out there to say the least but I wouldn't see anyway a DM could say no except to exclusively just ban the act of doing it even if it is "cheese." As for the initiative wizard as I have shown again (see either post #702 or post #1059) the wizard can get a crazy large Initiative bonus.
I did experiment with the idea of the wizard build replacing Resilient CON for +1 DEX +1 CON (moving around point buy) then replacing Fighting Style Defense with Skill Expert (Acrobatics) for 16 DEX & expertise, but I reached the conclusion that AC 24 (from not being disarmed - 1 because no Defense Fighting Style) would still result in the wizard dying.
But yeah I guess it is just initiative wizard now. At least against Samurai anyways.
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Answer: Don't forget Hex gives "disadvantage on ability checks made with the chosen ability" (Dexterity). So if you didn't take that into account it makes the wizard's chances even worse in this particular scenario.
The initiative chronurgist is also better against eldritch knights and arcane archers, the only other fighters anyone really tried as far as I know. Autofail the fighter’s saves vs insert incapacitate effect here and force-fail the arcane archer’s banishing arrow.
The whole thing was just about getting a turn to shapechange or something anyway so why go through the trouble of surviving 15 shots before acting when you could just go first? Nobody has thought of a fighter that can reliably beat true polymorph anyway. Eldritch knight can attempt dispel magic but with a low chance of success. Arcane archer’s banishing arrow allows saves, and dragons have high charisma saves while the arcane archer needs to sacrifice a lot to have a high DC to match. Sniper samurai can’t nova down any form worth using and has to give up everything for one nova. Once someone finds a fighter with odds above 50% of beating a shapechanged chronurgist regardless of its form, then the debate can continue.
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Hmm well it is a whiteroom so no need to adhere to common conventions… if we need more damage and we can’t use magic items but we can use common/basic gear, items, and such. Why not use the antimatter rifle or the laser guns those work. Additionally even though I don’t like it the fighter could technically have their weapons/ammunition be poisoned based as each is coated in poison like Purple Worm Poison.
Answer: Generally agree but disagree with the unintended slander that the Eldritch Knight is on the same level as the Arcane Archer as the EK is technically (last I checked) second place in viability with the SSS being first.
Answer: Entirely relies on which form is chosen by wizard since if it is adult gold/red dragon the SSS can effectively one shot the forms hp via Nova or defeat the form in a couple of turns and against stronger forms like a ancient white it only takes a few turns for the SSS to smash through the wizatds hp but then again after the form is defeated the fighter still has to kill the wizard.
Answer: I say it is already possible but it depends on if you think it is “fair” and while it technically is (Antimatter Rifle/Purple Worm Poison) as it is a whiteroom and as long as it’s in the books it allowed no matter the time/setting especially with the Antimatter Rifle one as it is technically a martial ranged weapon (firearm) and doesn’t rely on the “any but magic items rule” everyone seems to agree on.
Amyways do tell if what I’m saying makes sense (I’m tired) or if I missed something.
Just going to check in with a rules stipulation. A wizard can only have one shield. Well you can carry two, but as it says in the Player's Handbook:
'You may only benefit from one shield at a time.'
Although it might be beneficial - that way if you get one shield disarmed you still get a shield bonus since you've got another equipped.
Also, Monk/20 supremacy guys. Although I really think artificer is great.
Chilling kinda vibe.
Several wizard subclasses would have a +15 to initiative or close to it, in that scenario (int, dex and alert). You probably know this already, but just want to be sure. :)